Team S&M CX is thrilled to welcome back reigning women’s Elite National Champ Clara Honsinger, a quiet rider known for her class, technical tenacity, and fun-lovin’, coffee-sippin’, newspaper readin’ ways. Clara got her start in CX with us back in 2016, winning her first ‘Cross Crusades, then UCI events, then U23 title, then her first Elite National title all with us. Since then she’s earned two more titles, and a whole lot of other palmares. We are of course so thrilled to see her return to our program three seasons later, and welcoming back a champion gives us an extra wonderful reason to really celebrate her accomplishments as well as the incredible gear we get to race, ride, and rep out on the circuit.

The Bikes

For the 2023-2024 season, Clara will be aboard the Liv Brava Advanced Pro cyclocross-specific bikes. This ain’t no gravel-’cross hybrid—it’s a ‘cross bike through and through! We appreciate LIV-Giant for standing by cyclocross and continuing to include bikes in their line-up that are unique and specific to either ‘cross or gravel, as opposed to forcing a merger and thus a compromise in performance for each modality.

The Brava’s geometry is perfect for cyclocross, with a relatively quick-yet-stable feeling headtube angle and length, combined with a traditionally higher bottom bracket height for pedaling through and around the weird, camber-y stuff with no concern of dabbing out. Chainstay lengths are respectably short, while the top tube remains parallel to the ground, perfect for picking the bike up with ease. The main triangle is open and easy to slide into when shouldering, and tube shapes are easy to grasp.

LIV-Giant are well-regarded within the bike industry as a company that owns and operates its own factory and thus controls all of its manufacturing processes. This means that their carbon layups are unique to them, so the Brava’s patented “Advanced Composite Technology” is well-designed to be strong, light, and performance oriented. The “OverDrive2” 1 1/4” to 1 1/2” steerer and bearing combo add solidity and smoothness to a snappy handling bike. Lastly, the “D-Fuse” seatpost design touts and delivers (D-livers?) additional comfort in dampening the rough parts in a ride. The dropped, wide-stance seatstays clear mud beautifully and make for a fast yet comfy ride. Similar clearance is found with the fork and chainstays.

We’re well and truly pleased with the riding characteristics of this bike, and if you happen to be in the Portland area, swing by Sellwood Cycle Repair to try one out for yourself, or its counterpart the Giant TCX.

The Build

Clara is riding a size small Brava, which has a 52cm effective top tube. She’s running the PRO Stealth Superlight saddle in the 142mm width alongside a PRO Vibe Aero Alloy handlebar 40cm width from hood to hood—light alloy for its reliability, and aero for swank factor. The cockpit rounds out with painted-to-match 100mm Giant Contact SL stem for OverDrive2 and WolfTooth’s Supple Lite bar tape, plus their blue and red anodized Alloy Bar End Plugs.

We’ve been a Shimano team all along and in 2023 we are opting to run 11-speed GRX Di2 groupsets. Many of our riders love a 1x system, and the clutch available on the GRX RD-RX817 Di2 rear derailleur really suits our purposes. The tall and textured GRX hood shape inspires confidence in bumpy or slimy conditions, and the braking power and modulation for which GRX is recognized continues to set the bar. Clara primarily runs a 38-tooth Wolf Tooth GRX-specific DropStop chainring alongside their new and delightfully sleek LoneWolf Aero chainguide. Wolf Tooth blue and red anodized alloy bottle bolts decorate the frame. Clara runs 170mm GRX FC810 cranks paired with a Stages Cycling compatible power meter, plus Shimano XTR M9100 pedals.

HiFi Sound Cycling Components has been our race wheel of choice since the beginning, and that relationship continues in this new chapter. This season, Clara will be training on their Hootenanny23 alloy wheelset for smashin’ in the woods. At home she’ll race the tubeless EP30 Carbon Clinchers with HiFi’s custom gold decals. HiFi believes in style with ease for the masses, so custom decals are possible on most any of their wheelsets. Clara will be racing their EPCX Disc 35mm Carbon Tubular wheelsets decked out in holographic gold decals properly pinstriped in blue and red.

When we launched this team, we had an important meeting as a collective. As a team that not only represents but is primarily supported by a great bike shop, it was important to us to both select and agree on the gear that we wanted to use. Given the team format and the importance of practicality paired with performance, it was vital to decide on a component company together (Shimano), cassette spread and rotor size for wheel interchangeability (in this case 11-34 and 140mm), and—arguably the most important thing—the kind of tires we’d want to roll on. And the answer was simple. Before a formal partnership was brokered, we chose to buy and race Challenge Tires for the quality and the treads. We’ve used the yellow Pro casings, the white Team Edition, and now we’re using the red Team Edition tubulars and handmade tubeless tires. The intermediate Grifo tread is a mainstay in our line-up, while their heaviest tread, the Limus, gets lots of rotation in the PNW. The introduction of the Baby Limus in 2015 was a game changer and was met with a lot of excitement within our team and the greater cyclocross community. Now, Challenge has just named the new tread that they introduced last season: the Flandrien. It’s a cousin to the Baby Limus, and it’s dyamite in greasy and fast mud, packing a lot of bite on the side while still moving as fast as the rider wants to go. The introduction of their handmade tubeless line-up last year made for higher quality options when racing a tubular didn’t seem right, and also allowed us a more parallel feel in training when learning a tire.

The Design

Portland-based Ruckus Composites is an industry-leader in the world of carbon inspection and repair, specifically carbon bicycle repair. The company is led by engineer Shawn Small, and Ruckus’ company tagline “Better Service Through Science” gets straight to the intention of the business. They’ve been at it now for over a decade, and they’ve kept a lot of bikes out of landfills as a byproduct. Incidentally, Shawn is quite passionate about women’s cycling and is an advocate for parity by partnering with like-minded organizations such as The Cyclists Alliance, several women’s World Tour teams, and, well, us at Sellwood Cycle Repair.

With a high volume of processed carbon repairs comes the need to repaint said repairs. Ruckus offers these services in-house, and wouldn’t you know their primary painter Nick Raspberry is creative and excellent in his craft. Nick, Shawn, and the rest of the team at Ruckus worked with Clara and our team to dream up a paint scheme that would both honor Clara’s vision as a National Champion as well as our team and its sponsors. With this project, she saw an opportunity to show off some of the best aspects of our country: its wild and natural places.

“In my opinion, natural landscapes and open spaces are what makes the United States so amazing, so I wanted to highlight that with this paint job. I brought the idea to Ruckus and their talented design team mapped it out in one go. The icons of the Cascade Mountains are drawn across the frame, representing my home of the Pacific Northwest. But beyond the paint, what makes this bike pop is its aggressive geometry, light weight, and open frame—ideal for cyclocross. The Brava was made to be raced!”

The paint scheme is both precise and organic, with a playful splatter technique applied in the celestial upper half of the frame. Meanwhile careful masking and distinct linear tones create a bigger landscape across and even beyond the whole frame, horizontally represented across tubes, inviting you to imagine it in blank spaces, too. The design carefully highlights some of the points of attraction from our West Coast mountain range. Mt. Shasta is visible on the fork leg, a tribute to Clara’s hometown of Ashland, located right on the Oregon-California border. Central Oregon’s Three Sisters are found on the down tube. And Mt. Hood peeks around on the seat tube, the mountain most local to our home in Portland.

Logos and advertising are tastefully integrated and minimal—in keeping with the style of our rider. Ruckus, LIV, and Sellwood Cycle Repair are of course represented. Other details include the team’s well-known adage, “Do It The Hard Way,” boldly emblazoned across the top of the painted stem—fodder for consideration when piloting this bike as fast as possible.

Careful eyes will pick out one more detail hidden on the underside of the bike: a Honey Badger.

Why?

You already know.